


Likes Long Walks On the Beach

by PompousPickle



Category: Almost Human
Genre: M/M, Phone Sex, kind of, online dating shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:40:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wasn’t sure what had first possessed him to check on that file that Dorian had made him. Half of the information on the profile wasn’t correct. And some of it was a little more correct than John wanted to admit. Such as the last time he got laid and the name of his fish in grade school. He didn’t know how Dorian had learned it. Didn’t want to know.</p>
<p>What he wanted to know was why Knight-Ridee was actually interested enough to send him a message.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Likes Long Walks On the Beach

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr prompt by SlasherSivi!

**AgentSolo77:** What’s cooking, good looking?

**Knight-Ridee:** Really? THAT’S your line Han?

**AgentSolo77:** Aren’t we in that awkward-flirting stage? 

**Knight-Ridee:** If that’s your flirting I don’t think I want to get to the next stage.

**AgentSolo77:** We are going to have to switch to voice because I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic.

**Knight-Ridee:** We’ve been talking for almost a month. I think we’re in that you-should-know-my-sarcasm-by-now stage.

**AgentSolo77:** What about using real names? As much as I love being called Han Solo…

The message sound popped up before John had even finished getting all the words onto the holo-screen. He zoomed over and looked at it. A sigh escaped his lips despite himself.  

**Knight-Ridee:** Not yet. Not right now.

**AgentSolo77:** Right.

\----

John wasn’t sure what had first possessed him to check on that file that Dorian had made him. Half of the information on the profile wasn’t correct. And some of it was a little more correct than John wanted to admit. Such as the last time he got laid and the name of his fish in grade school. He didn’t know how Dorian had learned it. Didn’t want to know.

What he wanted to know was why Knight-Ridee was actually interested enough to send him a message.

They talked a lot, but never about much. They never gave away details, just talked about the basics. She liked old movies and TV shows. She loved _Knight Rider_ , and asked him to call her Kit. Real names were out of the question. Just for now. Just until they got to know each other better. And John liked the distance. Really, he was okay with that.

**Knight-Ridee:** Rough day at work. You free to talk?

**AgentSolo77:** Tell me about it. Yeah. I’m free.

In an instant, his screen started making noises, notifying him that she was calling him. With voice. They talked a few times on voice chat. But John’s voice still cracked every time. He didn’t want to get attached. He _knew_ he couldn’t get attached. He didn’t know her name, where she lived, or really much besides the fact that she loved old movies and jazz music. And cats, which was kind of deal-breaker to be honest.

“I can’t seem to get my coworkers to take me seriously.” Her voice was smooth and always-calm, even when she was wary or angry. It was pleasant to listen to, and only served to make John feel a little more self-conscious about well…about everything.

“Yeah? No kidding,” he said, not really meaning anything by it. Just wanting her to continue.

“They think I’m inferior. And don’t really hold any punches in saying so. Just because I’m not afraid of feeling things, everyone treats me differently. And I know what you’re going to say and it has nothing to do with me being a woman.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” John replied honestly. He wasn’t. He found men _much_ more volatile and emotional than woman, half of the time. He didn’t even know where the stereotype came from. Men and woman could be just as annoying, or compelling, or horrifying. Just mattered on the person. “You just need to show them who’s boss, Kit. You have to be _aggressive_.”

“Yeah? And how’s anger-management class working for you?”

John wilted a little. He told her about that in confidence. He knew that she would judge him, a little. She seemed to judge people a lot. But he trusted her to take it in stride, and accept that about him. He didn’t know why, but this woman _liked_ John. And he liked Kit.

He liked her sarcasm and her wit. He liked the fact that she listened to his dumb stories about his childhood and turned it around into stories about her job and her idiotic boss. She never got too close, but she never kept John too far away.

“Well, I haven’t shot anyone today. So I say I’m making progress.” John says with a small smile, closing his eyes as he hears her laugh. He knows this is all it can be. Because the last time he let the Perfect Woman walk into his life, she didn’t walk out without taking casualties. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it while he could.

“I’ll make you a plaque. You can put it on your desk. ‘Han Solo: Went a whole day without shooting someone. Once.’” She laughed again and John breathed deeply at the sound.

Sometimes, just sometimes, there was a note in her voice that sounded so familiar. Especially when she laughed. He could hear it right at the edge of her voice. And he thought that if he could keep her talking, he’d be able to identify it. He thought about that a lot. He always tried to place it. He kept her voice in mind, and thought about her laugh again and again, right before he laid down to go to sleep.

\---

It was a week later and they were on voice chat again. Dorian liked the way John sounded when he talked to woman. Stumbling, awkward, just a little bit desperate and shy. He liked the way he tried to hide his difficult personality, even if it came out anyway. He liked it a lot.

The voice he used belonged to a woman named Carol Andrews. She was on a documentary about beauty pageants once. Dorian copied her voice from there. He could trust that John wouldn’t recognize it, even if he made watching documentaries his new hobby.

“You sound tired today,” Dorian noted, shifting his voice to Carol’s after John greeted him. It had been a long day at work, and John had seemed distracted. He didn’t speak as much as usual, or argue as much as Dorian was used to. Dorian knew that he could use his online persona to get to the bottom of it.

“Haven’t been getting much sleep lately,” John grunted. Dorian could just picture him. Leaning back in his desk chair and kicking his foot up, his synthetic leg already lying on the charging port. In his mental processors, John was wearing his boxers and a tank top.

“Bad dreams?” Dorian was surprised by the concern and compassion in his own voice. He meant to sound nonchalant. But he found himself needing to know what made his partner restless. If it was a resurgence of his PTSD, it was his business to know. If it was the gaps in John’s memories causing him strife, then Dorian wanted to hear about it.

“Not bad. Well okay they’re pretty bad. Horrible, actually.” And then John laughed. Just a small chuckle, but it was casual, conversational. And suddenly the tension Dorian felt melted away. “When I tell you this, I need to know you will not judge me or see me any differently. Okay, Kit?”

“Of course. Anything.”

“I’ve been having erotic dreams about me and my best friend. My uh, work partner.”

All of Dorian’s systems went blank.

He was silent for a long time, longer than he wanted to be, anyway. He had to remind himself to keep Carol’s voice attached to his vocal systems. “That’s very strange. Perhaps you have feeling for him?”

“That pile of junk? No way.” John said casually, _too_ casually. And he made it clear that he wasn’t going to say any more on the subject. And good lord did Dorian want to know more.

“Okay. Then why are you having them? What do the dreams entail?”

Joan let out a long sound, a mix between a sigh and a groan. And Dorian suddenly realized that he wish he knew what John looked like right now, relaxing in his apartment, without his usual get-up on, without the gel stiffening his hair. “Mostly just him and I in bed. Me running my hands over his chest, watching as his body reacts to mine. The guy is made of steel, so it’s got to take a lot to make him react to me. But he still reacts. He grabs for me and I lick at him and bite at him, pulling every little reaction that I can from him.”

John’s voice was growing gruff and low, as though remembering it was having an effect on him. Dorian tried to picture it, tried to picture John crawling over him and biting at him and running his hands over his chest. Before he knew it, Dorian was running his own hands over his skin, imagining it and gauging his own reaction.

“I don’t know,” John continued. “Things go fuzzy from there. But usually they end with his face buried between my legs, sucking and licking like he needs to survive. And then he generally rolls me over and fucks me into the mattress, making me beg for it, scream for him.”

Dorian felt heavy, every bit of him weighing on his body. “J-john,” he muttered, his vocal processers faltering back to his normal voice, leaving his voice weak and cracking, stuck between him and Carol’s.

“I KNEW IT,” John suddenly shouted, his voice now firm and no longer husky and dark. “I knew it was you, you useless bag of bolts.”

Dorian quickly flipped back to his normal voice commands and blinked slowly, filing all the images of himself and John away. After a few moments of processing what had just happened, Dorian managed to speak. “You called me your best friend.”

“Yeah? Slip of the tongue.”

“I can think of somewhere else you might want to slip your tongue.” Dorian smirked, feeling a little more confident than he should, considering how thoroughly undone he felt when John had said those things to him.

“You’re just mad I pulled one over on you. When _you_ were trying to pull one over on _me_.” But Dorian could tell, just from the sound of his voice, and the slight hitch of his tone, that John was becoming profoundly uncomfortable. Just the way Dorian liked it.

“And I hadn’t been fooling you for the past month?” Dorian raised his eyebrow and shook his head, knowing that John had only recently been able to figure it out. “I liked talking to you John,” he then added, a little softly.

“Yeah well next time, don’t use some fake voice. It’s creepy. Okay?” And Dorian could almost hear the smile in John’s voice. That little, tiny smile that promised that yes, they will chat again. Not about cases or scanning testicles, but about normal things, small things.

“Yeah. Next time, John. It’s a date.”  


End file.
